Pick a pumpkin (and a different book) instead.
A class trip to the pumpkin patch is enlivened by a contest to identify and acquire the biggest, smallest, prettiest, ugliest, and best all-around pumpkins.
Froggy’s excited. So excited he makes up a song and teaches it to his friends: “Pumpkins, pumpkins, / muffins and pie! / Pumpkin faces / lighting the sky!” (Readers can sing along for the three reiterations, but they’ll have to make up the tune.) But while children will clearly understand Froggy’s excitement, they will surely call out the unsafe and even mean behaviors exhibited by Froggy and his classmates. On the bus, many students bounce or kneel with no apparent reprimand. When they arrive, Froggy strikes off alone while his classmates await direction from their teacher back on the bus. Travis takes the pumpkin Max had wanted (but couldn’t lift) for his own (“Step aside!” he says, though Travis doesn’t seem too put out), and Froggy rudely leapfrogs over his classmates to get to his choice. Finally, after Froggy just barely reaches the bus with his large pumpkin, his classmates and even his teacher laugh at him and his embarrassment when he drops it and it smashes. (Froggy is as clumsy as ever in this 28th outing, and frankly, the shtick is getting old.) Froggy gets the award for ugliest pumpkin (though he’s shown with an intact one at the end), and all the kids sing on the way home. Remkiewicz’s watercolors reflect the text, bringing out and visually expanding on the lack of cooperation among the students.
Pick a pumpkin (and a different book) instead. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-3633-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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